Hitchers

CHAPTER 32

There were no joggers in Pitman Park, no Frisbee tossers or skateboarders. Since the hammer had fallen on Atlanta, people didn’t recreate. Maybe they rode treadmills and pumped weights in gyms, but those were serious things that allowed you to retain a tight-lipped expression. The only type of smile that was appropriate in Atlanta now was a gallows smile, the sort of smile that didn’t reach your eyes, and told people you could take a swift kick in the crotch, or the end of the world, in stride.

The only people in the park were hurrying through on their way to somewhere else, and those with nowhere else to go, yet I flinched whenever I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. This place didn’t feel safe to me. Nowhere felt safe to me now, except Mick’s place. Every time I closed my eyes I was back on that roof; when I did manage to sleep it was all nightmares, all night now.

At the Sally (that’s what those who used it called the Salvation Army) I’d been told Salamander might be found here, and what he might be wearing.

He was sitting on a park bench next to a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee, his dog-eared sneakers crossed, his face hidden inside the hood of a filthy parka save for glints of a thick grey beard. I hurried over to him.

“Excuse me, are you Salamander?”

He pressed his hands on either side of the bench, looked up at me. “Well, I guess I am. My name is actually Sal Mandel, but it kind of drifted, you know?” He chuckled.

I smiled. I’d found Dave, I couldn’t believe it. As soon as I’d walked up Dave’s heart must have leapt. “Man, I’ve been looking all over for you.”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “A couple of guys told me someone was looking for me.” He lifted his cup, took a swig. “So now you found me. What can I do you for?”

“My name is Finn—”

He jumped to his feet, sloshing his coffee, and pointed at me. “You’re the one he called.”

“That’s right! Dave called me. He was my friend. He was looking for his wife.” I’d found him, I’d definitely found him.

Sal nodded emphatically. “I thought I was losing my frickin’ mind. He took hold of me, made me walk where he wanted, blink when he wanted.”

“I know, we’re all losing our minds lately.”

He pointed at my chest. “You got a hitcher too?”

“I do, yeah. But listen, I need to talk to Dave—”

Sal shook his head. “He’s gone.”

“I know, but when he comes back—”

Sal kept on shaking his head. “No, I mean he’s gone. For good.” He grinned, waggled his eyebrows joyfully. “I’m a free man again, master of my own domain.”

I frowned. “How do you know that?”

Sal stuck out his bottom lip, raised his shoulders. “I just do. I felt it. When he slid out of me it was like the best b.m. I ever had.”

I searched his face for some sign that he was kidding, or lying, that it was wishful thinking. He met my gaze, nodded once. He seemed so certain I half believed him.

“Why would he leave you, when all the rest of them are hanging on tight?” I asked.

He turned his eyes up, thinking. A woman rode by on a bicycle, her tires crunching pebbles and fallen twigs.

“You know,” Sal said, “I couldn’t tell you. It happened right after that second call he made to you, though, when your lady friend answered. If it was anything she said, I sure do appreciate it.”

What had Summer said? She told Dave to meet us at Mick’s place. Dave had asked if there was any word from Karen, and Summer had said…

Hope stirred in me like green buds on dead winter branches. Summer had ripped Dave’s heart out of his chest. She’d taken away Dave’s will to come back. If it was true that the dead who were back were the ones burning to be back, what happened if that fire was snuffed out?

I pulled out my wallet, fished out one of my business cards and all of my cash, maybe three hundred dollars. I held it out to Sal. “I need you to do something for me. It’s extremely important.”

Sal looked at the money, then at me, waiting.

“Will you promise to call me once a day, and tell me whether Dave is still gone?”

“That’s it?”

I nodded.

Sal took the card and the money. “Hell yes. What time?”

“I don’t know. How about noon?”

Sal nodded. “High noon every day. I can handle that.” He looked at the stack of twenties. “You pay handsomely.”

“It’s life and death. In fact, I’ll give you another thousand two weeks from now if you call me every day.”

Sal held out his hand, and I shook it. “You got a deal.”

If this is true… I kept thinking on the way back to Mick’s place. I didn’t want to wish Dave gone, but if he was…

Lorena had insinuated that it wasn’t a matter of choice, that she would leave Summer if she could. But that would be like willing yourself to not like chocolate, or to not love someone. You can’t not feel what you feel. What if you stop feeling it, though?

The trick was coming up with some way to make Grandpa lose his will to stay. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t think of anything. Killing Toy Shop might do it. I could discontinue it, but as I demonstrated after Grandpa was gone, you can always start a strip up again. What could I do—cut off my hands and burn out my eyes? The stony bastard would hold the pencil in his mouth if he had to.

Maybe Sal’s revelation could help Mick and Summer, though. Especially Mick. Gilly seemed to be back for one reason, and one reason only: finish the album and get Mick to record it. Beyond that he didn’t have much of a life to return to. If Mick pitched in and helped him finish, he might just drift away. In fact finishing the album would also mean Gilly had patched things up with Mick, working alongside him (metaphorically speaking) just like in the good old days, and that seemed to be the crux of Gilly’s drive to be back in the world of the living.

We’d been focused on finding a solution that would free all three of us, a one-size-fits-all hitcher-exterminating process. A silver bullet; a wooden stake. But these weren’t monsters, they were people, and each had their own reasons for being here. It made sense that each might require a different rite of exorcism. For some, there might be none at all.